CLOUD COMPUTING GIANT Salesforce is to cut around 200 jobs in Ireland. 

Last month, the company announce it was shedding about 10% of its employees, or just under 8,000 jobs, and closing several offices globally. It did not confirm at the time how many Irish jobs would be impacted. 

In a statement today, a spokesperson for Salesforce said the Irish job cuts “are part of the reductions we announced in January”.

“We are committed to the Irish market and plan to continue to invest here,” the spokesperson said. 

The company employs 2,100 people in Ireland and it’s understood that the number of cuts here will reflect the global percentage.

After strong growth during the coronavirus pandemic, the California-based group said business slowed last year amid rampant inflation and rising interest rates.

“As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people … and I take responsibility for that,” Salesforce boss Marc Benioff said in a letter to employees last month.

The company said in January most of the layoffs would take place in the coming weeks and will cost between $1.4 billion and $2.1 billion.

By December 2022, Salesforce, which specialises in business software and cloud computing, said it had 79,000 employees worldwide.

This was up sharply from 49,000 employees in January 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic sent office work online in a major boost to Salesforce.

Shares of Salesforce rose more than 3% after the announcement. Over the past 12 months, the stock has fallen about 44%.

With reporting by © – AFP 2023